Introduction: The benzimidazole nucleus is found in a variety of naturally occurring compounds and is of significant importance in medicinal chemistry. Owing to its conspicuous pharmacological properties, benzimidazoles have become an important pharmacophore and sub-structure in drug design and have been screened for a wide range of biological activities.
Areas covered: Areas covered in this paper include a review of the biological effects, mechanisms and synthesis of benzimidazole derivatives in the past 2 years based on patents. The patent databases Scifinder and esp@cenet were used to locate patent applications that were published between 2013 to present. Information from articles published is also included.
Expert opinion: Benzimidazole derivatives are remarkably effective compounds to many diseases and may have the potential to be the first effective therapy against Ebola virus. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop specific design software and sustainable industrial synthetic routes for the development of effective and clinically relevant benzimidazole compounds.
Keywords: Ebola; anti Ebola virus activities; anticancer activities; antiviral activities; benzimidazole derivatives.